


Locked Away

by laceslady



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Disney, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Mycroft is a bad person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceslady/pseuds/laceslady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has raised Sherlock to fear everyone in the outside world—for his own safety, of course. Sherlock is too different, too strange. Out there they would hate him, hurt him. Why should he want to take the risk of leaving 221B? That is, until John Watson wanders into the picture. Perhaps not all people are as cruel as he's been told.<br/>Hunchback of Notre Dame inspired AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Away

Mycroft knows from a young age that Sherlock is like him. They are both observant beyond the norm, able to discern what others pass by without a second thought. They think things people do not want to hear, tell the truth where lies would be preferred. Mycroft knows. But the difference between himself and Sherlock is that he can hide it. He covers up this darkness with a mask of normality, a reassurance to all the normal people around them that he can be what they want him to be, act how he is supposed to act.

He tries to teach Sherlock, but his efforts are met with exasperation. Sherlock doesn’t understand the consequences of being as different as they are. He thinks (rightfully, though Mycroft does not say it) that they are better than the throngs of idiots that populate the world around them.

And this, Mycroft realizes, is the problem. Eventually Mycroft sees that it isn’t a matter of won’t when it comes to Sherlock acting normally. His brother is truly incapable, and he feels a click of understanding when he realizes that this difference makes him better than Sherlock. Sherlock is better than everyone else, it’s true, and in some ways he is better at what they do than Mycroft, but Mycroft is better in the only way that matters: the way that gets him power and a position to use it with. 

So he comes to the solution to his problem. He tells Sherlock exactly what people will think of him if he does not act the way he should, as if it is fact; as if Sherlock is already the freak he is doomed to be seen as. From anyone else Sherlock would dismiss it, but Mycroft knows everything. And the doubt Sherlock’s mind grows, eating away at him, reinforced whenever he says something he shouldn’t.

‘You’re a freak, Sherlock,’ Mycroft says one day. The word wounds him, forces him to hide away in his room and teases tears from his eyes. If Mycroft thinks it, it must be true, Sherlock tells himself.

The other truth Mycroft feeds him is that no one else could ever care for him the way Mycroft does. 

‘They’ll lock you away, Sherlock,’ he says as Sherlock cries into his lap after being shouted at by Father for asking if a person’s brain was the same color as a snake’s or a bird’s. ‘If you tell them your stories, or show them your experiments. They’ll take you and put you in chains and you won’t ever see daylight again.’

Sherlock protests softly, saying that he would never hurt anyone or anything, that he only plays around with animals that are already dead, but Mycroft shakes his head. ‘They don’t know the difference,’ he murmurs. And so it is. Sherlock is too terrified of other people to find the truth for himself.

‘You’re my only friend,’ Sherlock says on a day when Mycroft is back visiting from university. Mycroft is already wealthy enough to afford a private tutor for Sherlock, to save him the torture of attending school and being singled out as different. It is a favor, a selfless thing he is doing for his brother, a fact he has made very clear to Sherlock.

The realization that his favor has also left his brother alone in the world doesn’t phase him in the slightest. ‘You wouldn’t want to be friends with them,’ he says reassuringly. ‘They would hate you.’ After a pause he places a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and says, ‘I am the only one who isn’t afraid of you.’

Sherlock nods, his boundless trust in Mycroft leading him to understand something that has not yet been given a chance to be true. It’s better that way, Mycroft knows, and so it is.

This goes on for years.

By the time Mycroft realizes how badly he’s damaged his little brother, they are no longer little and he is already working his way up the ranks in the government. Sherlock becomes a dark little secret that could ruin him if anyone discovered what he’d done. 

So he whisks Sherlock away, hiding him in plain sight within the thick of London. The flat he rents for him has room for others, but Mycroft pays for the whole place. The landlady is told that Sherlock is not to be disturbed under any circumstances, and is paid more for her consideration.

Mycroft himself, for he cannot trust anyone else to attend to Sherlock’s needs while keeping him a secret, visits on a bi-weekly schedule, supplying Sherlock with food and books and fodder for his experiments. And if on occasion there is a mystery Mycroft cannot solve, he provides Sherlock with all the information and has him piece together the answers. If the information given isn’t enough to come to a conclusion, Sherlock requests more and Mycroft obliges. These puzzles Sherlock’s favorite pastime, and Sherlock is kept mostly occupied despite the fact that he never leaves the flat. Mycroft assures him it is for his own safety, and Sherlock cannot agree more.

The world is a wicked place, and Mycroft keeps him safe.

It is for the best.

Unbeknownst to Mycroft, however, Sherlock harbors his own secret. Despite all his wariness and fear of others, he cannot help but be fascinated by ordinary people. From his flat he watches them pass on the street, in their cars. They go along with their lives, some so purposefully, and as they pass he drinks in every detail he can, deducing their lives’ stories from the cars they drive or the clothes they’re wearing, how they walk and what their expressions are like. Some even routinely pass him by, and those he believes he knows better than anyone. 

He is terrified of people, yes, but at the same time he wishes it would be possible for him to be among them, unnoticed, so that he could learn everything there was to know about them. He is hungry for their stories and their truths, but years of learning from Mycroft have kept him from venturing outside even in the dead of night.

Logically, he knows that he would not be recognized on the streets for the freak, the monster that he is, but his terror lies in what would happen if he should have to interact with anyone. To him, words and gestures from everything down to the shifting of one’s eyes are giveaways, signs of what a person is like and who they are inside their heads. Anything he might say or do around a normal person could give him away, cause them to turn on him, and the thought alone is enough to get Sherlock to lock himself away in his room and crawl up under the covers.

He lives this way for years, unhappily whiling away his time, wishing desperately to be something he is not if only for a day.

And then the world is turned on its head.


End file.
